Ranking 95 Surveillance Manufacturers Interest

By John Honovich, Published Mar 24, 2014, 12:00am EDT

IPVM has ranked interest levels in 95 surveillance manufacturers from most to least. These are the companies covered:

Over 400 IPVM members selected which of these companies they were interested in following, using our unique news monitoring service.

Here is an overview of the results, with the Y axis showing interest level and the X axis, the 95 companies:

Notable findings include:

The manufacturer with the most interest scored a 68%, while 5 tied for last place at just 3%.
The mean / average score was 16%.
However, the median score was just 11%, indicating that most companies attract very little interest.
The top 10 had interest level of 39% or greater.

As always, IPVM does not allow any promotional use of these rankings. Also, using this to justify product selection is stupid as that should be based on specific application, product fit, etc.

Useful Application of These Rankings

We recommend 2 productive uses of these rankings:

To get a sense of what the broader community is interested in, so you can understand what others find important.
For professional marketers and sales people, to understand how your company (or your partners) fare or languish.

As for IPVM, these results are strongly correlated with readership levels and should give you a better sense of what your fellow members want to be covered.

Axis Most Interest

Given Axis' size and broad support, it should be no surprise that they were the manufacturer members had the most interest in following, at 68%. Indeed, Axis interest was more than 2x that of Pelco's (31%), who held a similar position a decade ago in the analog era.

Avigilon Next

Avigilon only trailed Axis in interest checking in at 61%. With their fast growth, multiple acquisitions, fund raising and questionable ethics, industry people want to hear about Avigilon. Some people may be surprised because of the speed of Avigilon's ascent, but it is undeniable.

Big 3 VMSes

Next came the big 3 VMSes, Milestone (56%), Exacq (53%) and Genetec (47%), reflecting their broad 3rd party support and wide spread use.

On the other hand, many smaller VMSes showed little interest (NUUO 18%, Aimetis 15%, ipConfigure 10%, Video Insight 10%, Luxriot 5%, etc.).

Hikvision / Dahua

Hikvision generated the 6th most interest (at 43%) reflecting the company's international expansion and huge overall growth (now with $1 Billion revenue).

Chinese peer Dahua also registered with 28% but at notably lower level than Hikvision. We suspect this has to do with their OEM channel model that leads to lower overall company awareness.

Organizations - ONVIF Dominates

Among industry organizations, ONVIF generated, by far, the most interest (at 39%), taking 9th overall, tying Samsung and beating major companies like Sony, Pelco and Panasonic. However, given how broad ONVIF support is and how strongly debated its performance is, this interest is understandable.

No other organization generated even half the interest as ONVIF. ASIS was next at 16% (solid given that more IPVM members are integrators and manufacturers than security managers).

SIA Embarrassed

SIA got embarrassed. The Security Industry Association trumpets itself as 'thought leaders' and 'industry experts' but hardly any IPVM members seemed to care, with SIA getting a fraction of the interest of ASIS and, worse, tying for last place overall at a measly 3%.

The Ranked Chart

Here is the ranked chart. Again do not be stupid and use this for promotion or deciding what products to buy: